Monopoly board origin1/13/2024 ![]() The game was, in fact, created in 1903 - long before Darrow’s mythical basement revelation - by Elizabeth Magie, the daughter of an abolitionist who was herself a staunch anti-capitalist crusader. ![]() (The scale of Thomas Edison’s own contributions to the invention so associated with his name, fittingly, is now debated.) In the case of Monopoly, the journey of American invention was less a linear path and more a messy room shared by several people. What’s more, Monopoly’s origin story teaches us that innovation can be a complicated affair and that the “light bulb” moment of how things get made is, in fact, sometimes a myth. The creation story is laced with persistence, creative brilliance, and an almost patriotic presentation of work ethic. The game, Monopoly, became a smash hit, saving both Darrow and Parker Brothers from the brink of destruction. Tinkering around, he created a board game to remind them of better times, and finding modest success selling it near his home in Philadelphia, Darrow eventually sold it to the American toy and game manufacturer Parker Brothers. A version of it, tucked into countless game boxes, told the tale of an unemployed man, Charles Darrow, who went to his Great Depression-era basement desperate for money to support his family. For decades, the story of Monopoly’s invention was a warm, inspiring, Horatio Alger narrative.
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